Adventures in Walmart

So today, we went to Wal mart to pick up some curtains I ordered through the free site to store shipping. For some reason I am redecorating Cora's room for the third time in her very short life. Oh well. After our trip to Walmart I planned on going to Aldi's to buy pretty much all the canned goods we will need for the next year--big day. In Wal mart we get the curtains with no problems and all of a sudden Bryant wails and screams that his shoe has broken. It was true. His shoes have little bungee cords to tighten them and one of them had snapped, rendering the shoe useless. Bryant said that he couldn't go on, and that he would just have to go home. I have been planning this trip to Aldi for a while, and today was the day, so I told him we could just buy him a pair of croc's or something and he'd be fine. Also, take note that in the last month he has lost TWO pairs of shoes. I'm sure we'll find them, but they have been MIA for a while now, and one pair I just bought in November. Anyways, it's not like he had a lot of shoes to come home to or anything, so when we saw that they had no crocs, I just told him to pick a pair and be done with it.
This was an agonizing decision. Each color required the utmost consideration and thought, he couldn't decide whether he wanted a 10 or an 11. He didn't know if he wanted Disney Car shoes or regular, velcro or tie. Finally, I had to remind him that he hated the movie cars and that he needed to learn to tie his own shoes since he's almost five, and that he should just man up and get some regular shoe-lace shoes. So he did. After I removed the tags and put them on, he instantly changed his mind and needed the other color. I took the tags off the new color and put those on and he said they were too small and didn't feel right. I told him they fit great and he just needed a few minutes. He calmed down.
Pretty sweet for Wal mart right?

So all the while Bryant is meticulously trying to decide on his shoes Cora is tearing apart the shoe isle looking at all pink and white tennis shoes and taking them out of the boxes to get a better look. While looking, she found a pair of pink and white Disney princess shoes that light up when you walk. Frankly, I hate shoes with characters on them, and never wanted to buy any. I didn't come here to buy shoes, I came to buy curtains. But this little girl had fire in her eyes, and there was just no way Bryant was going out of Wal mart with new shoes and she not. I tried feebley to disagree and told her that Bryant needed shoes because his broke. She wouldn't hear a word of it, and started to throw a very nice tantrum. The truth is that I rarely give into tantrums. I think that's why my kids don't have them very often, but I felt for her. I just knew that she had to have them, so I sighed and said "Happy Valentine's day!" They were both so happy. I'm such a stickler for consistency and not giving in to my kids demands and whims, but today, it just felt right. And you bet she put those shoes on right there and has refused to take them off for the rest of the day.
And we still got to go to Aldi where I spent an amazing amount of money and ended up with a cart so heavy that some man had to help me push it out to the car. It was awesome.

Here's the can pyramid that Bryant built at lunch time

Christmas in Coloroado

We went to Colorado for Christmas to spend our holidays with Erick's family. His mom, dad, two sisters and their husbands and their cousin Rylan. It was a lot of fun. We did so many things and the kids of course did not want to leave! Let's face it, no one can spoil kids like grand parents. There was candy, presents galore, Nick Jr., unlimited attention, toys, and much much more. They also liked sharing a room with Erick and I, and Cora liked it so much she decided that she could never possibly take a nap or go to bed without me laying down with her. That stopped as soon as we got home! But it really was great, and oh my gosh, I have never been so well fed in my life! And when I got home I was able to clean out a closet and completely fill it with all the toys they got for Christmas! We were very spoiled and very taken care of! Here are some of the high lights!

Christmas morning (our kids were up at 5:30 easily with the two hour time difference!):


Bowling: Bryant and Grandma Janette always bowl on skype together so they had to go bowling for real! Bryant loved it!

And even Cora played
We also took the kids to Chuckie Cheese's for the first time. Bryant was in over load with all of the tokens. We pretty much just let the kids do whatever they wanted, so we ended up using a lot of tokens, but it was worth it
Cora liked the food best of course
A lot of there time was just spent playing with their cousin Rylan and having fun...I think Rylan had about had enough of Bryant and Cora by the end of it all; they can be pretty overwhelming!
Merry Christmas!

Just want to make you jealous

Yeah, I make these for breakfast...a lot. Aren't I lucky? Well, at least I'll be a lot more lucky when Erick fixes my blender. I burned the motor from making too many delicious healthy smoothies. Bummer. But, soon, I will be at it again! And there's always the food processor for when I get really desperate!

Christmas in the Carolinas

So this Christmas we were in Colorado, but before we left we spent some time with my side of the family. It was cold, rainy, and snowy, but we still had a lot of fun. Andrea and Emma came and stayed with us for a few days and we shopped despite the weather. They especially liked Edward Mckay's bookstore where Andrea found lots of very lovely cook books. Then we discovered that Cora really liked to look at those cook books. Andrea probably read cook books to Cora for three or four hours and each time she turned a page Cora would pretend to eat whatever was in the picture. Very cute.

Also, Andrea noted after looking at the kids' scrap books that Emma was on far more pages than she, so I made sure to take plenty of pics with the kids and Andrea and made sure to...well...leave Emma out of them. Sorry Emma! Hurray Andrea!